


Going West

by DesertVixen



Series: Brothers in Arms [1]
Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4759769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/pseuds/DesertVixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Walter Blythe has written his last letter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going West

Walter finished the letter to Rilla, and put it aside. 

He wished there was time to write to Una, but there wasn’t enough time to write her the long letter she deserved. A short dashed-off note, such as he might write to anyone, seemed to be unfair to the sensitive girl whose dark blue eyes he had found himself thinking of more often, here in France. Walter thought maybe, in a world without this war, he and Una could have found happiness together. 

He had been glad not to leave a sweetheart behind to mourn him, but the idea that Una could have been that sweetheart stayed with him tonight. He had kissed her at the train station, as a brother, but he wished that he could have returned to give her a kiss as more than that.

It was just as well, he told himself.

He would never see them again – not Una, or Rilla, or his mother, or any of the women who were dear to his heart. He would never see the beautiful Rainbow Valley or the homey Ingleside again – not in this life. Walter recalled sitting in Rainbow Valley with Rilla on his last night at home, fixing the dear place in his memory, so he would have it to sustain himself amidst the ugliness of war.

Now, he knew he would never write another letter or poem, and he knew that he had seen his last sunset this evening. 

The Piper had called him, and he had to follow. Deep down, he had known that since the first time he had seen the Piper, even if he had not understood where the Piper’s music would lead him. 

As he had written in his letter to Rilla, Walter did not regret coming to a place where he had faced his fears and proven his strength. He regretted all the ugly things that he had seen and experienced, and was almost glad to think that he would not have to find a way to live with them. 

He thought of his mother. Walter had never told her about his vision of the Piper, not even when he had told her that he must enlist. His mother had read the poem, of course, as she had read the others he had written – but Walter had never told her that the Piper had called him. 

It was not because Anne Shirley Blythe would not have understood, but because she would have. She was possibly the one person who would have understood the power of imagination, how very real his fancies could become. He knew his mother had seen unhappiness and ugliness in her early life, but it was nothing compared to what the Germans had done in this war. 

If his life was part of the price for stopping them, then he gave it freely.

Walter took that time to think of the people he loved, that he knew he would never see again. He wished there was time to write all of them, but he knew he had none left.

In the morning he would march out to meet the Piper, and go where the music led.

*** ***

**Author's Note:**

> This started out to be a treat for something else, but then it didn't match what the person asked for. Set during Rilla of Ingleside.


End file.
